CHAPTER SIX

TRILATERALS AND TAXATION

California’s Proposition 13, a measure reducing property taxes by 60 percent, is still echoing around the world. The mildly socialist London Economist ran a lead article on 17 June 1978 entitled “Throwing Tax Overboard,” expressing horror at the turn of events. The solidly free enterprise Northern Miner (Toronto, Canada) editorialized on 15 June 1978: “There may be hope for the Western World yet,” but claimed “13” wasn’t enough; we need, wrote the editor, “to finish the job by eliminating entrenched bureaucrats.”

All of which bring us to examine the common principles of taxation held by both Marxists and Trilateralists. Oddly, while there are Trilateralist papers on almost every major policy issue, there are none at all on taxation. After some research, we discovered a possible reason for the silence. Taxation is not a pressing problem for Trilateralists; it is only a pressing problem for you and me. Research unearthed an interesting paradox: Trilaterals emphatically favor more taxes for the common man, but do very well avoiding taxation for themselves and their corporate vehicles.

When we were able to identify Trilateral public statements on Proposition 13, for example, they were not unexpectedly strongly against reducing California property taxes. For example,

. Bank of America (Trilaterals Clawson and Wood are directors) contributed $25,000 to defeat Jarvis-Gann
(Proposition 13).
. Governor Thompson of Illinois, who is making appropriate presidential noises, rejected a similar tax reduction program in Illinois.
. Carter said Proposition 13 is an “aberration” that will not sweep the country.
. The Los Angeles Times (a director is Commissioner Harold Brown) was described by Jarvis himself as “the vindictive paranoiac, schizophrenic Los Angeles Times” for the vitriolic nature of its opposition to 13.

In sum, Trilaterals put their weight against Jarvis-Gann and tax reduction.
 

AMBIGUITY IN TRILATERAL VIEWPOINT ON TAXES

Trilateral opposition to tax reduction most emphatically did not apply to their own taxes nor to those of their corporate affiliations. Trilateral multinationals have successfully avoided paying taxes in the United States and have made some headway in tax a voidance in England and possibly elsewhere.

The United States picture was publicized recently by Congressman Charles A. Vanik (on 26 January 1978) after a congressional study of the taxes paid by major multinational corporations. Reported Congressman Vanik:
This study, covering tax year 1976, examines 168 companies. These include 108 industrial, 7 mining, 8 airline, 9 railroad, 5 trucking, 13 utility, 8 retailing, and 10 commercial bank companies. Because a few did not furnish data adequate for computation, some categories of taxes or rates could not be computed.

Where sufficient data made computations possible, the average effective U.S. tax rate on worldwide income of the corporations was approximately 13.04 percent, down significantly from the 21.3 percent rate in tax year 1975. In order to qualify for a tax rate this low, an average family of four could only have earned $20,000. The companies listed in this study had a pretax income of more than $38.7 billion.

The figures show that 17 companies paid nothing in effective Federal income taxes in tax year 1976 6 more than
tax year 1975 -despite combined total worldwide net incomes of more than $2,594,060,000 -table 1. The 17 companies
accumulated tax credits of more than $375 million. In some cases, however, companies paid no taxes because they
sustained net losses. In other cases, some companies will claim to have “paid” Federal taxes, but their credits exceed taxes, resulting in no effective payment and an effective tax rate of zero. 1

Included in this tax avoidance group of multinationals we find numerous corporations with Trilateral connections.
 

WHAT TAXES DO TRILATERALS PAY?

Having assumed the burden of deciding the future for American society and the New World Order, one would at least expect that Trilaterals pay their full share of the costs. We therefore examined the Vanik study from the viewpoint of identifying the taxes paid by multinationals represented in the Trilateral Commission by company directors.

The lowest income tax bracket for an individual U.S. taxpayer is 14 percent. On the other hand, Chase Manhattan, Continental Illinois, and First Chicago, the power houses behind Trilateralism, all pay far lower rates.

In fact, Chase Manhattan Bank paid no U.S. taxes at all in 1976.

On the one hand, David Rockefeller (chairman of Chase and the largest individual shareholder in Chase,) wants to decide the future of American society and the world; on the other hand, his bank is totally unwilling to make a contribution to the new American society and a New World Order.

Given these facts, we have every right to be skeptical about announced Trilateral intentions and objectives. We have every right to assume that the Trilateral Commission may be a gigantic rip-off on American society.

The following is a list of international banks with Trilateral commissioners on the board, and their effective U.S. tax rate on worldwide income in 1976.

As we all know, personal income tax rates are much higher than the rates paid by the tax-avoiding multinationals. In the U.S. the starting individual tax rate is 14 percent and the highest rate is 70 percent. In Canada the rate starts at 17 percent and ranges to 43 percent. Other European countries have even higher rates up to a confiscatory 98 percent in Britain. If you are a Trilaterally connected international bank, your effective rate in 1976 was much lower than the lowest individual bracket. In order of their success in avoiding taxes, Trilateralist banks rank as follows:

If you will examine the chart in chapter three, note how the three linked banks in the top left (Rockefeller) corner of the chart that have remarkable success in avoiding U.S. taxes. This success in avoiding U.S. taxation is carried abroad by these same multinationals. Take, for example, a report in the London Economist (14 January 1978) from the British viewpoint, under the scathing headline:

“No Tax Please, We’re Banks”

American and other foreign banks in London could end up paying little or no British tax if their huge claims for relief which are now being examined by the inland revenue are accepted. Even the British clearing banks could have their tax bills dramatically reduced.

A deluge of claims was lodged around Christmas 1978, following rumors that one of the smaller American banks had persuaded the inland revenue (British equivalent of IRS) to grant stock appreciation relief (SAR) on its holding of foreign currency notes as well as on gold bullion, which has been allowed for some time.

DO ALL MULTINATIONALS PAY LOW TAXES?

A prominent Trilateralist, Peter G. Peterson, chairman of Lehman Brothers and formerly assistant to President Nixon for international economic affairs has this to say about MNCs and taxes:

...the MNC is also a source of concern to some governments, since from its wide base it is often able to circumvent national monetary, fiscal, and exchange policies. The possibility of distortions arising from intra-corporate pricing practices to take advantage of national variations in tax laws has also been cited with concern.

A check of multinational corporations and their 1976 U.S. tax rates on world income turns up some multinationals that did pay significantly high U.S. tax rates.

Generally, however, those MNCs with Trilateral connections appear to pay significantly lower rates. This is only an approximation. It could be a spurious correlation, but there is sufficient evidence to warrant a closer look.

TRILATERALISTS PROTECT THEIR OWN

We can push this argument a little further. Trilateralists in government are protecting fellow capitalists from taxation.
A recent report by the House Government Operations Committee disclosed the following:

. IRS decisions on some multinational oil firms have cost the U.S. Treasury over $7 billion since 1974. “By the early 1970’s, multinational petroleum companies were operating abroad under a set of factual and legal circumstances completely at variance with those upon which the previous foreign tax credit rulings were based.”
. IRS failed to audit oil company returns or require them to provide supporting information for their expense claims. (Presumably audits are only for individual taxpayers.)
. These favorable actions stemmed from “interference” by then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
. More recent “improper interference” for the same purpose came from Secretary of Treasury Blumenthal.

The committee did not cite the U.S. oil companies involved, except to note that they operate in Saudi Arabia, Libya, and Indonesia. Aramco alone was named in one place: this company is linked with Exxon and Chase Manhattan interests.
 

In brief, a House committee has charged Trilateralists Henry Kissinger and Michael Blumenthal with “improper interference” with IRS to obtain benefits for certain companies. Even further, In September 1977, at the very time that the subcommittee discovered and criticized a suggestion made by a Treasury official a year earlier to have IRS and Treasury officials “cooperate” in secret dealings with Indonesia and oil companies therein regarding foreign tax credits (a suggestion which was also admonished as being improper by other Treasury officials), the new International Affairs officials were recommending similar actions.

Don’t hold your breath expecting further investigation. Henry has either a charmed life or personal sovereign immunity from the rule of law.

Compare this protective treatment for favored Trilateral associates with the Carter “energy” plan. The energy plan is a disguised tax plan aimed at the middle class. Carter proposes to give a few low-income energy users a small credit, and tax high-income energy users. When you total up the sum of credits and the sum of taxes, it turns out that the energy credits just disappear after a year or so and the energy taxes keep on mounting.

The disappearing Carter energy tax credit looks like this, in net total receipts per year:

This change from credits to taxes comes about because while low-income taxpayers and energy consumers qualify for credits in the early years, inflation quickly pushes these low-income groups into higher tax brackets (without credits). So by 1985 all energy users pay energy taxes and none get energy credits.

Compare this deceptive “energy plan” for taxpayers with the already cited benefits derived by Trilateralist connected firms with Kissinger and Blumenthal to run “interference” at IRS.
 

To emphasize the discriminatory approach of the Carter administration on tax matters, we can do no better than quote the congressional testimony of Philip E. Vision, supervisory revenue officer in the Chicago District Office of IRS, who in 1976 blew a small whistle on IRS procedures before the Subcommittee on Oversight of the Committee on Ways and Means. Congressmen Jones asked Vision about differing treatment of rich and poor taxpayers:

Is there pressure to seize a small business or a poor taxpayer’s property in order to close the case, and pressure to perhaps settle quickly with a rich taxpayer who has plenty of accounting and legal ability to drag things, out?

To which IRS official Vision replied:

In all candor, Congressman, I must say this: You will find those branches or groups that are involved in the inner city of Chicago, the low income, the closures are highest because there is really no problem. It requires no technical skills or knowledge to prepare a levy upon the employer of an employee who is getting take-home pay of about $80. We can go in, serve the levy and take the entire $80.

Certainly a taxpayer who is earning $80 could hardly be expected to employ an expensive attorney or CPA. Usually when he comes in, in response to the levy, it is with tears in his eyes because he allocated that $80 to the gas or electric company and because IRS took that money, his electric and gas will be shut off and also part of that money was intended to feed his family. This is a common practice.

I am sorry to report that, but if you would look at the closures in the poor areas of Chicago, the depressed areas, you would find that the closures of the small dollar TDA’s are overwhelmingly larger than they are in the affluent suburbs of Deerfield where I live.

TRILATERAL SENATOR ROTH JOINS TAX REVOLT?

Given our skepticism of the Carter administration policy on taxation, how do we assess Senator Roth’s tax reduction proposals? Take a hard look at the Roth-Kemp Amendment for a federal tax reduction. Senator William V. Roth Jr., is a Trilateralist. The proposal would cut federal taxes by 33 to 36 percent for hard-pressed (over $20,000) middle income groups. Effects for a family of four are contained in the following table:

Are the Trilaterals getting out in front of the tax revolt? Not at all. Roth-Kemp just won’t increase real income. The catch is that the tax reduction under this proposal will be phased in over three years and is totally insufficient to cut the fat in Washington. We are heading into a period of further major price inflation: 10 to 15 percent a year is more than probable. Where does that leave a taxpayer pushed into higher tax brackets? He will save one-third in federal taxes under Roth-Kemp and lose one-third from the hidden tax of inflation! In sum, Roth-Kemp is a deception.

The only useful tax reform at the federal level is repeal of the Sixteenth Amendment.

THE GRADUATED INCOME TAX OF MARX AND ENGELS

To fully understand the implications of a viciously graduated income tax system aimed at the small/medium American businessman and the broad middle class and to understand as well the role of the multinationals and the international bankers who make up the power elite behind the Trilateral Commission, we need to go back to 1847 and the Communist Manifesto of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

Of the Communist revolution, Marx and Engels wrote:

In the first instance, this can only be affected by despotic inroads upon the rights of property and by despotic interference with bourgeois methods of production; that is to say by measures which seem economically inadequate and untenable, but have far-reaching effects, and are necessary as means for revolutionizing the whole system of production. In brief, elimination of property owners and small- and mediumsized businessmen (“bourgeois methods of production”) outside the orbit of the multinationals and international banks is an essential prerequisites to socialism.

. Then Marx and Engels outline the famous ten “measures” for achieving revolution in the advanced countries to bring about socialism.

These measures are described by Marx and Engels as follows:

In the most advanced countries they will, generally speaking, take the following forms:

1. Expropriation of landed property, and the use of landrents to defray State expenditure.
2. A vigorously graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of the right of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all émigrés and rebels.
5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralization of the means of transport in the hands of the State.
7. Increase of national factories and means of production, cultivation of uncultivated land, and improvement of cultivated land in accordance with a general plan.
8. Universal and equal obligation to work; organization of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Agriculture and urban industry to work hand-in-hand, in such a way as, by degrees, to obliterate the distinction between town and country.
10. Public and free education of all children. Abolition of factory work for children in its present form. Education and material production to be combined.

Notably, there is a parallel between Marx and Trilateral propositions:

centralization of credit in IMF and the Federal Reserve System parallels Marx’s measure 5. AMTRAK, federal funding of rapid transit, and persistent efforts to cut down on use of individual automobiles parallels Marx’s measure 6.

Finally, our Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution, the “income tax amendment,” is none other than the “vigorously graduated income tax” proposed by Marx in the Manifesto. What has this to do with Trilateral multinational avoidance of taxation?

Plenty, as it turns out.

It is interesting to reread Karl Marx’s Manifesto in the light of the alliance between Wall Street multinationals and the Communist imperialists, Marxists, especially, should reread Marx. The enemy of Marxist totalitarianism is not the capitalist but rather the “bourgeoisie,” the middle class. Marx sees the bourgeoisie as the source of all that is evil, yet he does not include all the ruling establishment in those designated for elimination. To the contrary, when the class war is about to be fought to a finish, Karl Marx envisaged a curious event:

“a small part of the ruling class breaks away to make common cause with the revolutionary class, the class which holds the future in its hands.”

In sum, Marx envisaged a coalition of ruling interests of the revolutionary Marxists and a segment of the ruling class. This is precisely what history has recorded in the hundred or so years since the Manifesto was published. One of the most significant forces in modern world development has been the assistance from a relatively small yet powerful part of the ruling Western establishment to the Soviet Union channeled through such influential organizations as the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and today, the Trilateral Commission. In Marx’s terms, are not Cyrus Eaton, Armand Hammer, David Rockefeller and the Trilateral Commission ruling class breakaways? Have not Marxists and the “breakaway ruling class capitalists” joined hands to eliminate the American middle class? Unfortunately, academic analysts are blind to the implications of the alliance: they read Marx with preconceptions. So let’s present some evidence.

Earlier this year, the Marxist government of Angola reorganized Diamang, its diamond-producing monopoly. Now the Neto Marxist government will own 60.8 percent, and the balance will be owned by the former foreign corporate owners. It will be a mixed company. But which former owners will be expropriated to make way for the new Marxist shareholders? Not the big greedy capitalists we hear so much about in socialist literature, but, in the words of the Neto government “a large number of small shareholders.”

The major “foreign companies,” the large multinationals, that is, the ruling capitalists, will not be affected by the takeover. In other words, the ruling class joins hands with Marxist revolutionaries against the small bourgeois owners. Another example follows for those readers who have read Antony Sutton’s Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution and who may remember that in 1918 the leading Wall Street law firm supporting the infant Bolshevik regime in Russia was Simpson, Thacher and Bartlett of New York. As one indication of their support, partner Thomas D. Thacher wrote a report which became decisive in gaining British cabinet support for the Bolsheviks.

Also Thomas Lamont, Dwight Morrow, and H. P. Davison were closely involved in developing policy towards the Bolsheviks: all were partners in the J. P. Morgan firm. While in London on 13 April 1918 Thomas D. Thacher, a member of the American Red Cross Mission to Russia, wrote to the American ambassador in London that he had received a request from H. P. Davison, a Morgan partner, “to confer with Lord Northcliffe” concerning the situation in Russia and then to go on to Paris “for other conferences.”

Lord Northcliffe was ill, and Thacher left a memorandum to be submitted to Northcliffe on his return to London with yet another Morgan partner, Dwight W. Morrow. This memorandum not only made explicit suggestions about Russian policy that supported the pro-Bolshevik position of William Boyce Thompson (director of Chase, now Chase Manhattan, Bank), but even stated that “the fullest assistance should be given to the Soviet government in its efforts to organize a volunteer revolutionary army.”

The first three proposals in Thacher’s report follow:

First of all...the Allies should discourage Japanese intervention in Siberia.
In the second place, the fullest assistance should be given to the Soviet Government in its efforts to organize a volunteer revolutionary army.
Thirdly, the Allied Governments should give their moral support to the Russian people in their efforts to work out their own political system free from the domination of any foreign power...

Was Wall Street attorney Thacher a capitalist enemy of the Bolsheviks? Of course not. Thacher was right in there, helping the revolution, as part of the “breakaway ruling class,” along with capitalists from J. P. Morgan and Chase Bank.

Similar aid for Marxist revolution is taking place today in South Africa and Red China. And who is U.S. secretary of state today in charge of facilitating this aid? Cyrus D. Vance, who before his appointment as secretary of state was also a partner in Simpson, Thacher and Bartlett. As a final twist, do you recall that Senator Clifford P. Case was defeated in the primaries last month in New Jersey? Well, Clifford P. Case was also a member of the firm of Simpson. Thacher and Bartlett from 1928 to 1953, when he became president of the Fund for the Republic, the foundation that funded the study for a “new constitution” so desired by the elite.

Yet another memorandum from William Boyce Thompson (director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Chase Bank) to Lloyd George (prime minister of Great Britain,) December 1917, supported the Bolsheviks and admitted in part:
About the overthrow of the last Kerensky government we materially aided the dissemination of the Bolshevik literature, distributing it through agents and by aeroplanes to the German army. If the suggestion is permissible, it might be well to consider whether it would not be desirable to have this same Bolshevik literature sent into Germany and Austria across the West and Italian fronts.

Does this sound as if Wall Street and the Bolsheviks were enemies? Another excellent example of the capitalist-communist alliance is Gulf Oil in Angola, the financial backer of the Neto government, while Cuban troops protect Gulf’s Cabinda production facilities. And how about Armand Hammer, chairman of Occidental- Petroleum? In the Russian edition of Lenin’s Collected Works, you will find several letters from Lenin to Hammer addressed affectionately as “Dear Comrade.” Capitalists, the big enemy of communists? Nonsense. They work hand-in-glove to rule the world.

The key to understanding world events is to look at the world in terms of a Marxist Ruling-Class Alliance. Then seemingly inconsistent actions and events make sense:

. The elite subsidizes Marxist regimes: they are not enemies.
. The elite abandons free enterprise allies: it wants socialism.
. The elite presses for more individual taxation. that is, the Marxist “graduated income tax.”
. The elite reduces its own taxation in the same way that the Moscow elite lives it up at the expense of the Russian working class.

The textbook modern history is illusory because it is based on a mythical capitalist versus communist struggle.

Thus, when we are asked to believe that Trilateral ambitions are morally justified to build a New World Order devoted to the peace and welfare of mankind, two points strike us:

(a) this end does not coincide with other interpretations of Trilateral motivations and actions

(b) the means adopted appear authoritarian and suggest that the ends may also be authoritarian

What are some of the practical lessons we can learn from this alliance?

. If you are a small - or medium-sized business man or banker, a professional, or part of the “middle class,” you are targeted for elimination.
. If you are actively working for a multinational (among those cited in this book), you may as well work in the Kremlin: you are assisting destruction of free enterprise and the free world.
. If you are a socialist, you are deluding yourself. You are working hand in hand with the totalitarians you proclaim to despise.
. If you, as an individual, are interested in tax reform, the only acceptable tax reform is complete repeal of the Sixteenth Amendment.

ENDNOTES: CHAPTER SIX

1. Congressional Record - House, 26 January 1978.

Back to Contents

CHAPTER SEVEN

TRILATERAL CENSORSHIP: THE CASE OF C. GORDON TETHER

Trilateralists by their own statements see freedom of the press as a threat to achieving their objectives, the First Amendment of the Constitution notwithstanding. In The Crisis of Democracy, Trilateral authors Michael J. Crozier, Samuel P. Huntington, and Joji Watanuki describe our society as drifting with a “dangerously progressed alienation.” The media, it is argued by the three authors, has played a role in this alienation, and

“the media have thus become an autonomous power...we now are witnessing a crucial change when the profession (the media) tends to regulate itself in such a way as to resist pressure from financial or governmental interests.” 1

Note the key phrase: “resist pressure from financial or governmental interests.” We shall see later that the Gordon Tether case in England fits this mold precisely.

Trilateralists do not like resistance to special interest pressure because “the media deprive governments and to some extent also other responsible authorities of the time lag, tolerance and thrust that make it possible to innovate and to experiment responsibly.” 2

Again note the self-appointed Trilateralist role as “responsible authorities” and the threads of authoritarianism woven into this brief passage. And further:

“the media become a tremendous sounding board for the difficulties and tensions of society. Movements and fashions take broader proportions. It is much more difficult to escape the whirlpool of public relations events and to concentrate on more basic problems.” 3

In other words, legitimate grievances can be stated and faulty government criticized, but this weakens “authority.”

What do the Trilaterals propose to do about this “threat” of free expression? In The Crisis of Democracy, the counter action is spelled out:

“...significant measures are required to restore an appropriate balance between the press, the government and other institutions in society.”4

Specifically, Trilaterals call for an interstate commerce act for the media, that is, a regulatory agency for the media, to assure to the government the right and the ability to withhold information at the source.

So here we have it. Trilaterals want a “responsible” press, that is, a captive censored press, and propose legislation to achieve this end.

While waiting for appropriate legislation, Trilaterals are applying an informal censorship. There are some annoying journalists - like Gordon Tether of London - who feel a higher call than that of crass Trilateralism and - who are persecuted by Trilateralists.

In this chapter we will detail one case of Trilateral censorship in an English newspaper, and incidentally illustrate the long globalist arm of Trilateralism. Secret elitist groups always censor, or try to censor, news about their covert activities. Censorship stems from the overall need for secrecy, to conceal from the world at large. As long as Trilaterals (and Bilderbergers and other elitist groups) skulk around the world convening closed meetings in secluded corners with security guards to keep out the press then we may conclude that Trilaterals, Bilderbergers, and the rest have something to hide. For that reasonable conclusion, we shall probably be labeled “paranoid” - but the name calling is merely added emphasis of covert doings.

From an intelligence viewpoint knowledge of what such secret groups want to suppress is important – submerged “inside” information is a reliable clue to actual intentions, as opposed to public stated intentions. The case of C. Gordon Tether, a prominent London journalist, is important precisely because a Trilateral commissioner squashed Tether’s articles. Tether, for his part, retained the suppressed information and has since made it available to the public. Who is C. Gordon Tether? Tether, age sixty-three, is a very wellknown London journalist. For twenty years Tether wrote as the Financial Times’s “Lombard,” the longest running columnist in England and listed as such in the Guinness Book of Records. After 1974 some Tether articles were not printed and some not-too-subtle hints were made by the Financial Times about rewriting others. Tether refused and was thrown out on his ear – after twenty years at the Financial Times, and only a year or so before retirement.

The managing editor who banned the articles and did the firing is German born Trilateral Commissioner M. H. (Ferdy) Fisher. Of added significance to the United States is the Financial Times’s plan to enter the American market in late 1978 with a special edition printed in West Germany. Of still further significance is the Trilateral influence in the media, such as, La Stampa (Italy), Avanti (Italy), Die Zeit (Germany), Field Enterprises (U.S.) and the Kyodo News Service (Japan).

WHO READS GORDON TETHER?

What makes Gordon Tether especially damaging to Trilateral ambitions is his readership. And let’s make it clear from the start that this author does not necessarily agree with all Tether’s views; what is critical is the suppression of free speech and the subject matter suppressed. Tether’s readers would make most of us writers downright envious. For instance, they include(d):

. King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, who had such high regard for the “Lombard articles they were translated into Arabic for Faisal’s personal perusal...”
. Conservative member of Parliament Peter Tapsell, who considers Lombard articles “required reading” for someone like himself (although Tapsell disagrees on Tether’s low marks for the Common Market and the value of multinationals).
. Harold Wilson (Labor prime minister) who cited Tether as “...one of the most distinguished independent writers...”
. Former Financial Times editor (for twenty years before Ferdy Fisher) Sir Gordon Newton, who testified that
Tether was “amenable to suggestions from him” and that “he (Newton) would not ban a subject.” Further that he (Newton) “always defended Mr. Tether’s column on occasions when it was disapproved by members of the
Financial Times board.”
. Labor Minister for Overseas Development Mrs. Judith Hart, testified, “...it would be a very dangerous situation if columnists in our newspapers were to find they were not able to say what they thought.”

You see why Tether’s writing could be either extremely useful to Trilateral ambitions or extremely damaging?

Over twenty years Tether had built up an influential and admiring (if not always agreeable) readership. That adds up to power, although Tether is almost certainly not looking for power. Trilateralists are well aware of the crucial role of journalism in surfacing or suppressing information. Michel Crozier, Huntington, and Watanuki in The Crisis of Democracy term media “the gatekeeper”:

“Their main impact is visibility. The only real event is the event that is reported and seen. Thus, journalists possess a crucial role as gatekeepers of one of the central dimensions of public life.” 5

Now there is much information that Trilaterals do not want seen by the public, that they want to remain invisible and to go unreported and suppressed as nonevents.

Unruly journalists who do not read the guidelines on the elitist gate are unwelcome: after all they have the means to sabotage the New World Order.

THE BANNED ARTICLES

Forty-six Tether articles were banned by Financial Times editor cum Trilateral Commissioner Ferdy Fisher, presumably because they contained information which was supposed to remain invisible.

Certainly an editor has control over the content of a newspaper or journal. That is an editor’s right and responsibility. However, in Tether’s case, a long-lasting twenty-year editorial relationship had been established by mutual consent -so that Fisher’s censorship was a one-sided action tantamount to breach of contract. This is a vital point to hold in mind. Moreover, many of the “banned articles” were later published elsewhere, ranging from the Spectator (conservative) to New Solidarity (socialist), which makes nonsense of the Financial Times’s plea that Tether’s articles were “not up to standard.”

The most objective way to get to the root of the Tether-Financial Times dispute is by a theme analysis. Every piece of writing has a theme. By assessing and grouping themes, one can isolate what, if anything, was annoying Commissioner Fisher. We extracted a random sample of nine articles (every fifth banned article) and listed their themes. (See table.) Run your eye down the list of selected banned titles. Then do the same with the theme column. There is a common theme which will hit readers like a ten ton truck.

The themes of the nine selected banned articles 6 strongly suggest what is bothering Ferdy Fisher (and his Trilateral cohorts). Any editor or writer in the transatlantic Establishment press who touches upon certain topics too often or in too much depth receives a polite telephone call to suggest that “perhaps you have exhausted the potential on this topic.”

No fewer than five Tether articles (of the selected nine) have a common theme -a “no-no” theme of criticism of the supercapitalists, international bankers who act as if God has ordained their right to rule the world. Two articles are anti-European Economic Community (EEC), and EEC is a vital first step to the global authoritarian structure demanded by Trilaterals. Let’s look briefly at each of these nine banned articles:

(1) A July 1974 article (“Need for a City Lobby”) points out the one-sided nature of City (of London) propaganda and its delicate avoidance of the seamy side of the financial world. Just a week before this Ferdy had banned another article (“Beyond the Limits of Detente”), in which Tether attacked the supercapitalist Kissinger policy of subsidizing Soviet military prowess. From this author’s personal experience at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University (influential Trilateralist David Packard is on the executive board), I can assure the reader that our subsidy of the USSR is a very touchy subject among Trilaterals they know they are betraying the Western world but can’t resist the profits.

(2) “Spotlight on the Honours System” (banned 12 February 1975 but printed ten days later in The Spectator) refers to the British system of awarding “Honours,” that is, titles, in an annual “Honours List.” Tether made a simple point: that the great disadvantage of such a system is “our inability to get away from class distinctions.” Furthermore, businessmen are well rewarded monetarily for expertise and shouldn’t be clamoring after such baubles. Tether suggests resentment is thereby generated and undue attention is given to “unscrupulous power-seekers.”

(3) “Silencing the Resistance” (banned, 12 June 1975) touches on the Europeanization of England, a necessary first step to a Trilateralist world government. Tether doesn’t like Europeanization, nor the EEC (European Economic Community). The theme is that suppression of anti-EEC views makes England a “one party state” and could be “the first step down the path leading to a Police State.”

(4) “Newsletters at Loggerheads” (banned 19 September 1975) is another “no-no” subject in the Establishment media. There are several hundred “hard money” (i.e., pro-gold) newsletters, maybe more, mostly in the United States, which over the last decade have been far more accurate in their advice than pro-Establishment financial media. Tether reports in this article on their differences, affirming that a healthy underground financial press exists. Schultz and Myers for example may have differences, but both have been more right in their prognostications over the long run than such newsletters as Greens Commodity Reports or newspaper financial columnists such as Sylvia Porter who tend to reflect the Establishment “party line.” Schultz, Myers, and other pro-gold newsletter editors are “non-persons” so far as the Establishment is concerned.

(5) In “Supercapitalists Fall Out” (banned 16 January 1976) Tether comments favorably on Solzhenitsyn and argues that the rivalries among the supercapitalists can have great significance for the world. We should start to take an interest in their doings before they get us into trouble. Tether cites Woodrow Wilson’s famous lines: “Some of the biggest men in the U.S. in the fields of commerce and manufacturing know that there is a power so organized, so subtle, so complete, so pervasive that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.” Tether correctly records that this behind-the-scenes power still exists. Of course this is another “nono” for the Establishment press; you won’t find this topic investigated by the Washington Post, and the New York Times.

(6) In “The Prince and the Bilderbergers” (banned 3 March 1976) Tether hit the jackpot. Every self-respecting journalist knows that the Bilderberger secret comings and goings and meetings are just not to be reported in depth. But Tether actually complained, “why is it that, if there is so little to hide, so much effort is devoted to hiding it?” Tether’s conclusion is logical: the Bilderbergers have something to hide. (The article was later published in Verdict in November 1975.) Prince Bernhard (onetime leader of the Bilderbergers) was personally involved in the messy Lockheed kickback affair, and this supports an argument that all these groups (Trilaterals, Bilderbergers, Council on Foreign Relations and so on) use moralistic talk of peace and world order as a cover for their own profit.

(7) “Mocking at the Spirit of Easter” (banned 15 April 1976) comments critically on Citibank’s proposal for a thirty year rearmament program against Soviet imperialism. One can understand Citibank sensitivity. Not only has Henry Wriston publically made known his dislike of such freewheeling commentary, but Citibank is one of the international banks responsible for the need for rearmament. These bankers financed and subsidized the Soviet Union to its present military prowess. Heaven forbid that any journalist should publicly discuss that story of greed and amorality.

(8) “Those Roosting Chickens” (banned 10 May 1976) continued Tether’s anti-EEC commentary.

(9) The final article in our random selection, “Losing Ground in Battle of Ideas” (banned 5 July1976), the most important theme is that the IMF is an engine of world inflation and that reform of the world’s monetary system must begin with phasing out the key role of the U.S. dollar.

What can we say about the overall thrust of these nine banned articles?

. All the articles in some way are critical of “the powers behind the Establishment,” that quasi-secret world rarely, if ever, reported in the U.S. or European media. 7
. Six of the nine banned articles zeroed in on the internationalist banking establishment and their power games. Tether’s rather mild view is that their globalist antics may not be healthy for our world.
. Tether names names - Rockefeller, Citibank, Prince Bernhard, Bilderbergers - and it is notable that the context in which these names were reported, that is, as having met in secret conclaves, is rarely, if ever, mentioned in the U.S.

In recent years an exposure of these groups has been made by independent academics in the U.S. One of the best is a series of books by G. William Domhoff, professor of sociology at University of California, Santa Cruz. Domhoff explores the American ruling class, its operations, 8 functions, and meeting grounds in The Higher Circles (1970), Who Rules America? (1967), and The Bohemian Grove and Other Retreats (1974.) These books also portray the background of Trilateral Commission operations and the sensitivity of the ruling elite when its more nefarious activities are exposed to public view.

That is, after Domhoff’s careful exploration of the heavy drinking and prostitution in the Bohemian Grove retreat, for example, we are left with an explanation of the ineptness and lack of moral fiber displayed by the elite in international affairs. After such exposes we might accurately view the elite as a group of naughty little boys, rather than the far-sighted statesmen of their own self-portraits.

GORDON TETHER AND THE MISSING GOLD

While this surfacing of suppressed information is quite sufficient to turn Establishment heat onto Tether he may have sinned further by refusing to accept the party line for the condition of the U.S. gold reserves - although Tether’s Fort Knox articles were not banned. Tether was probing the “Fort Knox gold mystery,” that is, the possibility that U.S. gold reserves are not as reported. On 11 February 1975 Tether wrote an article raising questions on the quality and quantity of U.S. gold reserves, and he presented his grounds for believing that a gigantic “cover-up” is in progress - that the U.S. gold (if any) is at least of inferior quality (and Washington acts as if an inventory might reveal some unpleasant secrets).

There is no doubt that the Establishment is sensitive on this issue. In November 1977 this author made the observation (at the Monetary Conference in New Orleans) that four-fifths of the gold in U.S. stocks is .85 coin melt, not acceptable for “good delivery.” Commodities Journal picked this up and asked pro-Establishment Charles R. Stahl of Greens Commodity Reports about this statement. Stahl immediately, as if stung by a bee, responded, “This is nonsense.” Yet a telephone call to the Treasury Department will confirm the coin melt nature of U.S. stocks. On the other hand, the alloy-grade quality of the reserves is a fact that the elite wishes to be kept invisible.

In brief, we know there is a knee-jerk reaction to hide two facts:

a. The quantity of inventoried gold in U.S. reserves
b. The quality of this gold, Le. 80 percent is alloy “coin melt”

The assault on Tether may well stem in part from his willingness to tackle this potentially explosive scandal.

ELITIST INFLUENCE IN BOOK PUBLISHING

This raises the question of the extent to which the book publishing industry has been dominated by elitist themes and concepts. While this must be balanced by the observation that Harper & Row published The Bohemian Grove, and Hawthorn, The Plot to Seize the White House, on balance it is usually difficult to publish anti-Establishment books in the U.S.

How pervasive is Trilateral censorship in the U.S.? Potentially, there is an unhealthy penetration by Trilateralism of the book publishing industry. This may give you an idea of the scope:

1. CBS (Commissioner Henry B. Schacht is a director) owns Holt, Rinehart & Winston, Popular Library and
Fawcet (about 15 to 20 percent of mass paperback market), plus seven monthly and 60 annual magazines
2. TIMES-MIRROR (Commissioner H. Brown is a director) owns: Harry N. Abrams (art publisher), New American Library (mass paperback) and Los Angeles Times
3. TIME, Inc. (Commissioner Hedley Donovan is editor-in-Chief and Sol Linowitz, is a director) owns: Little, Brown; New York Graphic Society; Time/ Life Books; Book of the Month Club plus Time, Fortune, Money, and People. In practice, elitist dominance of book publishing does not stop books from being published; however, it does inhibit widespread distribution.

Book publishing has low barriers to entry: the capital and skill requirements are relatively low. The essential requirement for success is the marketing skill of obtaining distribution; and in recent decades, a flood of anti-Establishment books demonstrates that increased distribution is possible. On the other hand, there are curious events to suggest elitist intervention at some point in the book distribution channels. A personal example will make the point. In 1974 this author published Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution with a New York publishing house (Arlington House.) Given the esoteric nature of the topic, sales were quite respectable -something over 25,000 in hardback. Yet, distribution of the book through regular channels was effectively strangled.

The trade journal Publishers Weekly (5 August 1974) selected the book for its leading entry under “nonfiction” with a healthy four inch review. Most books receive a couple of lines and, of course, only one book leads off each section. Obviously, the reviewers at Publishers Weekly took the material at face value. The review read as follows:

NONFICTION
WALL STREET AND THE
BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION
 

Anthony (Sic) C. Sutton. Arlington House, $7.95. Professor Sutton, affiliated with the Hoover Institution at Stanford and author of “National Suicide” (1973), uses State Department files, private papers of Wall Street figures and other sources (biographies, etc.) to document his astonishing thesis that Wall Street, notably the J.P. Morgan interests, played money games with both the Kerensky regime and the Bolsheviks in 1917. Among other things he notes the preponderance of U.S. financiers rather than humanitarian personnel on the American Red Cross Mission to war-torn Russia at that time; he suggests too that the American writer John Reed (“Ten Days That Shook the World”) was secretly supported by the Morgan people. At least by association Sutton demonstrates an eyebrow-raising interest on the part of Wall Street powers in making hay with their archenemies some 50-odd years ago. Conservative Book Club selection. (September 3, 1974)

The above report is objective and adequate. It appears that Publishers Weekly plays no favorites. Then “something” happened. Not a single bookstore in the U.S. known to the author carried the book. A few ordered the book for customers by special request. Not a single review of the book was published in the Establishment press nor the left-liberal press. The book was effectively made “invisible.” Sales were made through a book club and by mail order for the most part. Why? Obviously, because of the extreme sensitivity of the topic, no bookseller would stick his neck out.
 

Certainly, there is potential for massive intervention into freedom of expression by elitist suppression. Currently the Authors’ Guild is pressing the Department of Justice to institute a Clayton Act case against publishing mammoths, fearing that authors’ freedoms have already been infringed upon. Yet, the problem is much more than mere financial control of the press and publishing. A greater roadblock to public comprehension has been expressed by Trilateralists themselves:

...the ruling elite and the educated audience play a major role as an important screen. They constitute the primary audience of the highbrow publications, which in turn tend to structure the problems that will finally reach the broader audience. Public relations of a public figure will be conditioned by the existence of these two levels. This means that there is a very serious buffer against too immediate reactions.” 9

In brief, problems and solutions are already “structured” before they reach the general public.

About 1984 when the Trilaterals meet to review progress, or lack of progress, in the past decade, they will find a fundamental error in their strategy. From the start, it has been known that the Trilateral thrust is in conflict with the Constitution of the United States. Efforts have been made - by the Fund for the Republic and others – to amend the U.S. Constitution. This was an impossible objective. American citizens like the protections of the Constitution, especially protection from those ambitious persons who would rule the world. So an elitist decision was made to go it without changing the Constitution - to meet the problems as and when they arose, trusting that the cement of the New World Order would harden before enough citizens were aroused to protest the violence to the Constitutional order. This will prove to be the crowning error.

In any event, English journalist Gordon Tether may have the last laugh yet: Financial Time’s circulation is slowly shrinking - down 7.2 percent from 1973 - and readers don’t take kindly to the idea that their daily newspaper may be filtering news. Yet Gordon Tether’s case is a warning to us. Tether has appealed to the London Industrial Tribunal for arbitration in the dispute; and it is already the longest such hearing in the history of the Tribunal. In England there is no constitution, only a convention to define freedom of expression. There is, on the other hand, the First Amendment in the United States. So we would do well to sharpen our awareness and be watchful for any intrusion upon freedom of the press from whatever quarter it may come.
 

ENDNOTES: CHAPTER SEVEN

1. Michael J. Crozier, Samuel P. Huntington. Joji Watanuki. The Crisis of Democracy (New York: University Press. 1975) p. 35.
2. Ibid.. p. 35
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.. p. 181
5. Ibid.. p. 35
6. If you believe the random selection process is unfair or biased. then purchase “The Banned Articles” and read all fifty-six. Copies may be obtained from The Trilateral Observer, Box 4775. Scottsdale, AZ 85258. Enclose $3.50 please.
7. The only English language newspaper in recent times to run an exposure series on this behind-the-scenes power has been The Citizen (Pretoria. South Africa). understandably peeved at U.S. interference in internal South African affairs. The Citizen. no doubt. decided to blow a small whistle. Reprints available from ACSA Foundation. P.O. Box 4335. Scottsdale. AZ 85258.
8. On this. see G William Domhoff’s The Bohemian Grove and Other Retreats. (New York:
Harper & Row. 1974).
9. Michael J. Crozier et aI.. Crisis of Democracy. p. 36

Back to Contents